North Korea - The hardest OSINT environment?

Speaker 1: Welcome to The World of Intelligence, a podcast for you to discover the latest analysis of global military and security trends within the open- source defense intelligence community. Now, onto the episode with your host, Harry Kemsley.

Harry Kemsley: Hello and welcome to this edition of World of Intelligence by Janes. I'm your host Harry Kemsley. And as usual, my co- host, Sean Corbett. Hello Sean.

Sean Corbett: Hi Harry. Good to be back.

Harry Kemsley: Sean, we previously talked about this topic, North Korea. And we acknowledged, at the time, that it was a very hard nut to crack from an open- source perspective because it's a relatively closed environment, comparatively closed to other parts of the world, certainly, but it is very topical. It's come very much back into the news for a variety of reasons. And I thought that, therefore, today, we should revisit North Korea. To which, I am delighted to introduce to the audience, two experts on it, Rachel Minyoung Lee. Hello Rachel.

Rachel Minyoung Lee: Hi.

Harry Kemsley: Thank you for joining. And to welcome back Cristina Varriale, a member of Janes. Thank you for coming back to us.

Cristina Varriale: Hi. And thanks for having me again.

Harry Kemsley: So let's start with a quick update on what is going on in North Korea at the moment, Rachel, that you are seeing in the work you are doing. And then, we'll start to unravel that going through Cristina to do the same and then start picking out some of the lessons from an open- source perspective. So Rachel, what are you seeing right now in North Korea?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: Thank you, Harry, for that introduction. And I'm very delighted to be on this show. What is going on in North Korea? I think there's so many things going on as we all know, starting with last week, well, two weeks ago, with North Korea's allegation that South Korean drones had violated the airspace of the capital, Pyongyang. And then, there was the demolition by the North Koreans of sections of inter- Korean roads and railways. So it looked, for a while, that tensions might flare up again on the Korean Peninsula, but at this point in time, I think we can safely say that Kim Jong Un doesn't want to escalate tensions. Which then brings us to the question of why. And in the meantime, I mean, as all of this was happening, we've gotten reports about North Korea sending troops to Russia to the battlefields and it sounds like about 3000 soldiers have already been sent and that 10,000 more will be sent by December. This has been confirmed by the South Korean intelligence and confirmed again by the US, the Secretary of Defense. inaudible.

Harry Kemsley: All right, so each of those topics, I suspect, Rachel, we could spend the rest of the afternoon talking about, but we'll zero in on those in a second. Cristina, what are you seeing? Anything different or largely the same?

Cristina Varriale: So it's very similar to what Rachel set out already, but I think zooming out slightly, one of the threads that, for me I think, is common across both of those events, and a couple of other things we've seen this year in North Korea, is the beginning of this year, they announced a change of stance, vis-a- vis unification with South Korea, and have essentially said that they're going to remove that from their ideology. We were expecting that to have then been removed from the constitution as a goal of the country earlier this month, and we've not really had too much clarity on whether that's happened or not. And the reason I say that this is kind of a thread through all of these events, I think there's a link between North Korea's change in position on unification with South Korea and the elevation of the threat that we've seen and North Korea's narratives around that, including the drone incident, North Korea's position with external actors, Russia included, but some others as well, and how North Korea is then using and leveraging those external relations to mitigate and manage maybe some internal risks that it's seeing particularly around the control of information and the access to outside information that North Koreans maybe are having increase access to, especially since the reopening of the borders post-COVID.

Harry Kemsley: So are we seeing signs from within North Korea in any shape or form that suggest that North Koreans are getting some insight into the world outside the borders of North Korea?

Cristina Varriale: I think that is an incredibly difficult question to answer and kind of one that's really key to understanding North Korean national security perspectives and country stability. For me, I think we are seeing some narratives come out of state media and particularly from Kim himself that give me an indication that the risk of this might have increased slightly. So for example, after the drone attack, the North Koreans published images of the leaflets that were supposedly scattered by that drone, which I think is a relatively unusual thing to do, and that's followed Kim making statements about South Korean media narratives that have, quote- unquote, " tarnished the image of the country," following floods that occurred in August and July this year, claiming that the narratives that South Korean media were putting out about the number of deaths and the impacts on the country were false. To me, that suggests that there's an effort by the leadership to almost try and get on top of some of those narratives that are maybe entering the country and increasing that access to outside information.

Harry Kemsley: Reshaping them in a way that allows the populations to rationalize them away.

Cristina Varriale: Exactly. Exactly. Taking control of them almost. And in the context of the change of approach to unification, I think that's quite an interesting thing to be doing given that we have also seen that change of stance be used to elevate the threat to South Korea, not just in a military sense, but also, in the information sense.

Harry Kemsley: So Rachel, I'll come back to you in just a moment on this point of reunification, whether it's still an ambition or not, I'll come back to that point in a second. Before I do that, Rachel, Sean, just a quick thought. What do you imagine, from your background, the organizations you've worked for will be thinking about some of these things we just heard about? What are their perspectives of these activities and statements or non- statements in some cases?

Sean Corbett: So I think they'll have the same challenges as we do within the open- source, to me, in terms of validating what we're seeing. How much of it is rhetoric? How much of it is trying to message the outside, but also the inside world and saying, " Okay, which of this is true"? So it's interesting what Rachel said that to validate the special forces, in inverted commas, " troops that are being deployed to Russia." But actually, we will see, and we are seeing evidence of that. As they go to Russia, when they're outside North Korea, it does give us more opportunities to see what's actually going on. And of course, when they actually show on video roads blowing up, it's quite easy on imagery to say, " Yeah, that is that road and it has been blown up." So validating what's going on and then using experts and not necessarily just from the intelligence community, because I know Rachel had worked with those organizations before, but from an open- source perspective saying, " Okay, what does this mean? What are we seeing here? So what about it? And how do we know? So North Korea is the most difficult intelligence problem set if you like, and therefore, we've got to use every single source we can to try and understand it.

Harry Kemsley: All- source approach. Rachel, just before we perhaps move into the how, how are we getting these insights and making these assertions? What's your perspective on this reunification aspect that Cristina has mentioned? What are you seeing and hearing? What's your view on it?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: So from my point of view, in tracking North Korean media statements, the commentaries, it's been clear for some years, probably going back to the spring of 2019, in the wake of the failed Hanoi summit, that North Korea was shifting away from unification with South Korea definitely this shift away from this notion of unification, it did not happen overnight, it's been happening for a while. So this, a lot of people ask, is this something that Kim Jong Un, at some point in the future, might go back on? Would he ever talk about unification again? And my assessment is probably not because he has taken such extreme measures to make the point that the two Koreas are now two separate countries, that they're not part of the same nation. If Kim's intention had been to maybe leave some flexibility down the road to maybe go back on his policy, I think he would've handled all of this very differently. For example, he didn't have to tell the domestic audience about this policy change. He didn't have to tell them about the demolition of the sections of the inter- Korean roads and railways, right? This is going back to last week. He didn't have to do that. But telling the domestic public about these developments, about the policy change, I mean, he announced the policy change in an important party meeting in December and then followed up again in another important speech at the Supreme People's Assembly, which is the North Korean parliament. So it doesn't get any more authoritative than that. When Kim Jong Un makes a speech, I mean, that is the most important thing. So there's no going back. And to tell the people, you're essentially saying there's no going back because once you tell your domestic audience that this is how things are going to be, then you're essentially not leaving yourself any leeway for policy change.

Harry Kemsley: Right. This is perhaps a speculative question, so apologies in advance, but given how limited our perspective into what the North Korean population are thinking and doing, is there any likelihood that there was shock in the population of North Korea that their leader will have decided to consider the two countries separate? Because for generations, since the Korean War, the objective has been very much about a single Korea. So will there have been shock, perhaps even disappointment, do you think?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: That's an excellent and a very relevant question. And I would say yes. And the reason for that is that North Korean media, there was not a single day when the North Korean media would not talk about unification. And this shifted in October 2019, I would say, in the wake of the working level nuclear talks between the US and North Korea in October 2019. They stopped running commentaries actually. And then, when those commentaries went away from the Party Daily, the commentaries also about unification with South Korea, all of those went away too. I'm not North Korean, never lived there, so I don't have that personal experience of having led that life on the ground, but I would think that just judging from North Korean media and what people are exposed to that unification is something that's ingrained all your life. And for that to just be taken away one day, for the leader to just make a statement or speech saying that we're now two separate countries... And recently, just last week, he said, " Well, now that we're no longer part of the same nation, we are justified in launching a nuclear attack on South Korea if South Korea infringes on our sovereignty." Which tells you one of the reasons why he wanted to roll back on the unification policy and his South Korea policy overall. So going back to your question, it's a long- winded way of saying yes, I think it would be shocking. And I think that is why we are seeing North Korea executing this policy the way it has been. So decision making is one thing, I've said that it took them a few years to come to this policy. So it's not an overnight development policymaking- wise, decision making- wise, but that is separate from rolling out the policy. And it's been interesting how, Cristina earlier mentioned the Supreme People's Assembly, the constitutional revision, we had expected to see an announcement on the revisions of the constitution relating to South Korea unification and even a definition of North Korea's territory. North Korean media's readout of that parliamentary session mentioned a constitutional revision, but not relating to any of these topics. So that indicated to me one or both of these things, there are domestic sensitivities or North Korea wants to keep all of this a surprise just for strategic ambiguity, because he wants to give himself the advantage as he, maybe, launch some kind of a surprise, start a conflict maybe in the Yellow Sea, but make it harder for South Korea to plan ahead. So for me it was one of those two things when they did not announce the constitutional revisions.

Harry Kemsley: Okay, so Sean, I going to come back to you in just a second. Cristina, we really need to see your thoughts on what Rachel's just said there, but before I go to Cristina, Sean, I'll come back to you in a moment, but the lack of apparent wish to now reunify, does that change the military perspective of North Korea any other way? Do we see that there may well be less threat militarily as a result of this?

Sean Corbett: So I'm really quite worried about this actually because at the end of the day, and I'm not a North Korean expert, but if you've got a population where just below the sort of surface, there's this hope that one day, the hope that the reunification is there, and suddenly, that gets taken away with you, if your population loses hope, then you're on a spot of bother actually. So trying to think of this strategically, why is it they're cozying up to Russia, for example? Are the two linked? Do they want to become a bigger actor on the stage? If North Korean soldiers start coming back in body bags, how will that change the perspective within North Korea as well? And I'm sure we're going to get on to talk to you in fact, but what I'm intrigued by as well is that China has always been the big partner, no question, with North Korea, for all the reasons that we know, economically and geographically, with them cozying up to Russia does that change that dynamic at all or is it still just a small thing? But just asked the question, and I'm not answering them obviously, is that why are they having so much to do with Russia? I mean, we've heard about the arms, so there's shells that are being actually exported over there, so they're actively deciding to take a bigger role on the international stage.

Harry Kemsley: Any clues on that, Cristina?

Cristina Varriale: Yeah, so I wanted to very quickly pick up on one of the points that Rachel made and add something to it. So I completely agree with everything she said, but mentioning the hypothesis for why we might not have seen those constitutional changes or at least a public announcement of them. Completely agree, domestic sensitivities, and the second hypothesis, which is now completely escaped my mind-

Harry Kemsley: We'll come back to it. Let me ask you a slightly different question then.

Cristina Varriale: Yeah.

Harry Kemsley: The link between what appears to be a strategic change in their policy and the link into Russia, is that likely to be related?

Cristina Varriale: I think it probably is. I think given the timing of these things as well, and looking at North Korea's evolution of foreign policy as Rachel said, kind of from 2019 onward, in particular, from 2023 onwards and post- COVID, tracking North Korea's foreign relations more broadly, there's definitely been a significant uptick and interest in wanting to engage with particular partners. Russia is obviously a quite prominent one for the obvious reasons of it being a large and significant country. It gives North Korea credibility and kudos and they can portray that back in domestically to create legitimacy and credibility for the regime. But you look at some of the other countries that they're engaging with, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Vietnam's a really interesting one. There's also been military delegations between those two countries meeting recently in which North Korean state media didn't report on the most recent meeting, but Vietnamese media did. And they discussed things like engaging in military training cooperation, military healthcare, strategic thinking, strategic education, equipment cooperation. So although we don't have the same level of formalization of that relationship that we've seen with Russia, North Korea are definitely putting out the feelers as to who is willing to engage. And I think that's possibly one restraining factor on how they've acted vis-a-vis the change of position with South Korea. If you want to leverage international and external engagement with countries that still care about the international system to some extent, you probably don't want to be putting yourself in a positions where you're maybe betraying that you're on the brink of a war with a country that inaudible.

Harry Kemsley: Right.

Cristina Varriale: For example, and this is a hypothesis that I think is worth thinking about, would that type of stance disengage Vietnamese cooperation?

Harry Kemsley: Right.

Cristina Varriale: It may or may not, but I think thinking about these engagements as a package, not singling out North Korea- Russia relations, not singling out inter- Korean relations and kind of looking holistically at how North Korea is looking at external partners, I think it's incredibly helpful we're trying to understand and unpack all of this.

Harry Kemsley: So Rachel, that almost sounds like North Korea is trying to position itself as more of a world level player. It's trying to get more involved in regional dynamics. It's trying to see itself as influential in a major conflict with one of its neighbors, with Russia into Ukraine. So in a minute we're going to come on to this. So how do we understand what Korea does? Because we can't actually read it in their press as such, we can't actually listen to them talking about it because that's such a closed environment. But what's your export view of this hypothesis I'm suggesting that North Korea is just trying to position itself as being a much bigger player on the world stage?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: I completely agree with that assessment and the reason for that is that since October 2023, North Korean official statements, particularly those from the foreign ministry have said, consistently, " We are going to work closely with the Russians to create a security structure." Putin said something very similar on the eve of his arrival in Pyongyang in June, where in an article that he contributed to the North Korean Party Daily, which is the most authoritative media outlets, he said that he would work with Kim Jong Un to create a security structure in Eurasia. So they have been coordinating. And what we're seeing now with Kim Jong Un sending his troops to Russia, I think all of this ties in together. It's one thing to send weapons to Russia, but it's quite another, it's a completely different level of commitment to send such a huge number of your own men to another country, to another country's battlefield. And by doing this, Kim Jong Un creates this image of being a major player. It's a major player working shoulder- to- shoulder with the Russians to create an alternate global order, anti- US, anti- West global order. And I think this is one of the reasons why Kim Jong Un made that decision to send troops to Russia.

Harry Kemsley: Just to take that thought one small step further, are there any other nations that we think they might want to engage with? We talked about Cambodia, Vietnam, are there other countries in that region that they may wish to connect with?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: We have seen two fairly high- level delegations visiting from Belarus to North Korea. So Belarus definitely is one country that I think we should keep an eye on. And you can see, Belarus is a close friend of Russia, right?

Harry Kemsley: Sure.

Rachel Minyoung Lee: So you can also see Kim Jong Un and North Korea using Russia to improve ties, expand ties with countries where Russia has some leverage.

Harry Kemsley: Right. All right. Sorry Cristina, go ahead.

Cristina Varriale: Can I just add another country to that? Outside of the region, I think Nicaragua is a really interesting one.

Harry Kemsley: I would just like to ask, have we not seen some reports of them being in South America as well?

Cristina Varriale: Yes. So I think it was late 2023, although I might have got that date wrong, North Korea and Nicaragua agreed to the mutual reopening of embassies. Nicaragua is absolutely not my bag, but from what I understand, those in power in Nicaragua are part of the same family and have the same relationships as those that North Korea used to connect with under Kim's grandfather and father. Weapon sales is something that is probably quite high up the agenda given the history and the kind of connections between the two countries. And that Nicaragua is also in a position of wanting to position itself away from sanctions that the US has imposed on it. So again, looking to be part of an alternative world order. So not isolating itself, but looking for this creation of something that enables interaction externally where necessary.

Harry Kemsley: Got it. All right. I'm going to ask yourself Rachel and Cristina two questions and we'll take them in turn. And Sean and I will try and moderate as we go through. So I want you to take yourself forward a couple of years, what do you think we're looking at then in terms of the Korean Peninsula? And then, the second question, I want you to go back a couple of years and I want you to pretend that you are a brand new analyst who's just been told, " Hi, you've got a new desk, you're running the North Korea desk," and you've not touched North Korea before. Both of you are extremely expert and knowledgeable about North Korea, but I'm going to ask you to go back to a time when you weren't and look through the time between then and now in the second question and help me understand, what do you use, if you were going to advise the younger you looking at North Korea from an intelligence perspective for the first time on what to use from open- sources and how to use it, what would you advise? So two questions are going forward two years, what do you expect to see? Go back a few years, how do you advise the younger Rachel, the younger Cristina on how to attack this problem of the closed society of North Korea? And on this occasion, I'm going to, I've ask Cristina to go first because Rachel, I asked you the question first. So what are you going to say about two years from now Cristina?

Cristina Varriale: They are both excellent questions. And I think part of the challenge that we have with North Korea is that sometimes things don't play out as we anticipate. And I think we've seen that a lot recently. The examples Rachel cited earlier, we would probably have looked at the narratives that the North Korean regime put out following the drone attacks and made assessments that this is going to escalate, like Rachel said, and it hasn't.

Harry Kemsley: And almost did the opposite, almost.

Cristina Varriale: Yeah. Yeah. So I think there are certain indicators that we would be looking at along the way as to what that's going to look like. I'm talking around this because I'm trying to think about what does this look like? What are the things that I'm going to be tracking to pave the way to that three- year look ahead? I think one will be the relationship with Russia. I think that's going to be really, really key. It's not impossible that that relationship expands significantly over that time period. I don't see a scenario right now in which we have full scale mobilization of the KPA fighting on the front with Russia. I think there are multiple steps in which we would need to see before we got there. But certainly, I think it's possible that North Korea's military capabilities could advance based on the experience they're getting from collaborations with Russia, not just in terms of military technology, but also the experience that they're potentially going to get from being on the battlefield. I'm getting to where this goes in three to five years time that could result in a more emboldened North Korea in terms of how they're interacting with South Korea-

Harry Kemsley: Greater confidence.

Cristina Varriale: Yes. Yeah. Part of the criticism that we see, or that we can sometimes see, especially in South Korea media regarding the perceived threat from North Korea is they rely heavily on their nuclear weapons for deterrence. Their conventional assets are maybe not quite comparable anymore. I guess they have vast numbers of infantry, but the degradation of their conventional capabilities, overall, degrades the threats that they pose. And that, to me, would be the most worrying scenario that the degradation of that conventional capability has evolved over that period. So I think that's the kind of thing that I would be tracking.

Harry Kemsley: Maybe that's what we'll leave you with for now and we'll come back again to see if there's anything else you could use to help you track that. Rachel, what are your thoughts looking forward a couple of three years?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: Cristina already raised some excellent points. I would just add that, for me, the priority would be the security dynamic on and around the Korean Peninsula. So where would North Korea's relations with the US be in three years time from now? Is there a possibility that the next US administration might accept some form of arms control talks or talks focused more on risk reduction rather than denuclearization? Which would then, of course, raise a lot of issues in Seoul and probably in Tokyo as well. This program is not really about South Korea, but will then that lead to more nuclear debate in Seoul? How would that nuclear debate then evolve in South Korea? Because that's another topic of debate. DPRK- China relations, things are not looking great between the two countries. I mean, this year was the 75th anniversary of forging of diplomatic ties. There's nothing going on between the two countries, and North Korea is celebrating that with the Russians. What we're seeing now between North Korea and China, North Korea's position on China, my question is is this a tactical change? Is Kim Jong Un just miffed at Xi Jinping because Xi Jinping didn't deliver on something that Kim wanted? Or is this a bigger strategic shift in policy? And this goes back to the bigger question of what is North Korea looking for from Russia? What is Kim Jong Un, what has he gotten from Russia? What is he looking forward to getting from Russia that might possibly offset what the Chinese have been providing the North Koreans? And the question of DPRK- Russia relations, I've been saying for quite some time now that we should probably be more imaginative when it comes to DPRK- Russia relations. I still think that most experts, at least North Korea experts, tend to think that this relationship is transactional and commercial in nature. I think that we should maybe step out of our mold maybe and think bigger and think the unimaginative. We would not have imagined, two years ago, that North Korea would've sent tens of thousands of containers of weapons to Russia. We would not have imagined that North Korea would be sending soldiers to Russia. A lot of people, two years ago, were saying, " Well, North Korea still doesn't have anything to offer to the Russians. Why would Putin want closer relations with the DPRK?" And many of us turned out to be wrong. And we have to look at this within the broader context of, as Cristina mentioned earlier, the reorientation of North Korea's foreign policy. The moment Kim Jong Un decided to walk away from the decades- old policy of normalizing relations with Washington through denuclearization, that was a huge step. And when he walked away from that, I think he had a plan in mind, maybe it wasn't a firm plan, but around the time that he decided to walk away from this Washington- centric, US- centric policy, we started to see him pivot also to China and Russia. So we're talking about a fundamental policy change. So this goes beyond Ukraine and this goes beyond the war in Ukraine.

Harry Kemsley: It does sound, again, to my perception anyway, Rachel, like a country that's trying to position itself on the world stage, the hegemony that it felt it started to show to the US was getting under the skin and they wanted to position itself as not part of the West's perspective, doing what the West wanted. It wanted to assert itself. That's the way it feels to a non- expert outsider like myself looking in. Let me nonetheless spin the question back to that second question. So Cristina, when we last spoke about North Korea, one of the things we talked about was the fact that you can't read it directly because there isn't that much to read, you read by inference and indirect. So again, go back to the young Cristina straight out of university, hasn't done her masters yet, and you're helping her understand how to go about this North Korean study you've asked her to do. What are you going to give her in terms of guidance?

Cristina Varriale: I think step one, read key state media outlets and track the type of content. So who's saying it? Who's publishing these things? Are they statements from Kim? Are they statements from senior leadership? Are they general commentaries? Track the who. And track the what. What's the content? Are we looking at big, bold statements that are very strategic in nature? Are we focused on content vis-a-vis South Korea? Are we focused on content vis-a-vis the US? Are we focused on military content? Are we focused on domestic, social and economic growth? What is the content? What are we talking about? And then, the third thing to look at is the frequency. How often are these things being talked about? Are they in the reaction to a particular external event or external commentary? Are they in reaction to something going on internally within the country? Why are these statements happening and how frequently are they happening? I think that would be a really good starting foundation to try and understand the narratives and the change. I think it's very difficult to come at this particular issue without understanding patterns. I think we had this conversation in quite a lot of depth last time.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Yeah.

Cristina Varriale: So by tracking those three things, you're then going to start to build that picture for yourself of those patterns, what's normal, what's not normal. I think that would probably be where I'd tell-

Harry Kemsley: Very good.

Cristina Varriale: inaudible.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, very, very good. Young Christine would be very pleased to have that advice, I'm sure. Now Rachel, turning to you, patterns, understanding the trend, understanding what's being said, how frequently is, what Cristina's offered, what would you add to that for the younger Rachel getting started in her studies of North Korea intelligence perspectives,

Rachel Minyoung Lee: I fully appreciate Cristina's readout of North Korean propaganda analysis methodology, which basically is level, audience, timing, tone, everything, everything being context. I would say I would probably key in on the most common mistakes that I see North Korea analysts making and maybe tell the younger Rachel not to make those mistakes. So one of the most common mistakes that I see is that we have this tendency to tie every key North Korean action to the US. So one of the most common narratives that you'll see in any given newspaper article or commentary about North Korea is, " Yes, North Korea is doing this to get us attention. Yes, North Korea is doing this because we're in the lead up to a US presidential election." Maybe that's part of it, but that's not all of it, sometimes it has nothing to do with the US. So I would say maybe instead of just focusing on the superficial and maybe the lower hanging fruit, maybe try to look more inside North Korea, the domestic developments. Because what North Korea does is often shaped by what's going on at home, right? As is the case with all countries' foreign policy, it's never just about one factor. When North Korea decides to conduct a nuclear test, it's probably domestic factors plus external factors. And cherry- picking. I think North Korea is very unique in that a lot of things that they say tends to be interesting. There's a lot of colorful language involved, like a lot of harsh rhetoric and a lot of times what they say sounds very alarming. It sounds like this is the first time they've said this. So I guess this also goes back to the importance of collection and baselining, really, to make sure that what you're seeing now is maybe not that unique, and if it is, then maybe you should look at the bigger trend. Which goes back to my next point, which is that you shouldn't really over- parse. Parsing is important, but oftentimes, one event is maybe one data point and maybe that data point is the data point, but oftentimes, it's just one of the many data points. So maybe refrain from jumping into conclusions, as tempting as that may be, especially in this day and age of social media and Twitter, and when you want to be one of the first ones to get your voice out there, maybe take some time to do the deeper dive analysis. Yeah, I think that's it for me.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. Sean, I'm going to have to come to you because I think Rachel has very carefully drawn us around to the T- word to tradecraft. And also, that she said right at the end there that the first bit of news you read is almost certainly not right, or at least not as right as it's going to be. So your thoughts on the tradecraft around North Korea as an analyst?

Sean Corbett: Yeah, I'll come to that, but first I want to answer your other question about have I been an analyst a few years ago not understanding North Korea.

Harry Kemsley: Okay. Yeah.

Sean Corbett: The first thing would be going to Rachel and Cristina and the reason for that is because certainly, from a UK perspective, is that our understanding of what's happening in North Korea was really poor. Certainly, the nuances that are delivered from the understanding of the strategic level and the policy level, now at the tactical level, it's quite easy. There's that much surveillance going on that if there was any indication there's going to be any tactical events we'd know in advance. So we're looking at that. But in terms of the big strategy, I would be ask that question. And Rachel's answer doesn't surprise me because we've talked about it before, is that my concern about North Korea, this kind of answers the tradecraft point, is that there are so few data points that you know what it's like if there's a void of information, you'll fill that void. And so, are we over- interpreting everything we've seen just because... And it's the same on the imagery side. Actually, I'm doing some image analysis on it. You see something like, " Oh, is that significant? Because I've seen an image of it." It might just be normal behavior and we just don't know. So it's exactly as I always say, the first information isn't necessarily the right one, but if it's all you've got, be careful not to over- interpret it and use all sources that are available.

Harry Kemsley: All right, so I'm going to come to all three of you in a moment for the one takeaway for the audience that you want them to leave from this podcast. And as I leave you just now, turn cogs about that so you come up with your one takeaway, I think what I've heard today, which is particularly interesting, is that we couldn't have foreseen what we are seeing about North Korea. That despite the longevity of the studies of North Korea, the patterns that we've formed, the understandings we have formed, despite the difficulty of doing that, I think you both said that nobody could have said even a number of months ago that we would be in a place where Korean troops would be on the ground in Russia preparing to be involved in a battle and all the things we've just talked about that that was unforeseeable. That's interesting. But there's something else you said, Rachel, that I also want to key on, which is that analysts therefore need to continue to be imaginative. And I would add to that word, curious, curious about what they're seeing, continuing to dig and understand. And that takes time. And on asking you what you would tell your younger selves, you both described a longterm process. Neither of you said, " Read this, understand that, and you'd be about right." You both said, " This is going to take a long time. You need to build a picture, a longterm... Don't over- parse things, but equally, don't spend too little time doing it, it's a longterm endeavor. That's what I'm taking away. It's a complex intelligence challenge, but one that, really, experience has to be the forerunner in terms of how you become an expert analyst for North Korea. That's my summary of the last 40 minutes or so. So Rachel, I'll come to you first. What is the one takeaway you want the audience to have from this? This is where Sean is horrified that everyone's going to take away the one thing he's got in mind is he's got to then think of another one very quickly. So Sean, start thinking a second or third. Rachel, what is your one takeaway for the audience?

Rachel Minyoung Lee: Oh boy, that's hard because you've done such an excellent summary of our session. I would say look longterm and think longterm because North Korea plays the long game, and I think we're seeing that now between inaudible-

Harry Kemsley: I like that.

Harry Kemsley: I

Harry Kemsley: like that. I'm reminded by that statement of a phrase I heard from a very senior Arab Sheikh who said, " I can't be late Harry, I measure time in millennia." And when you think about that, that's a very longterm perspective of where we need to be looking, but maybe not quite that far. Cristina, what's your one take away?

Cristina Varriale: I think building on what you've both said, challenge assumptions. We all have our own assumptions and we should be challenging them every single day. If we can't challenge them ourselves, find people to challenge them for us. One of the things that Rachel said about the tendency to pin what North Korea does on the US, and yet if we just opened our mind that tiny little bit more and said, " What if that's not true?" I think that there'd be a lot more credible hypothesis development in relation to-

Harry Kemsley: inaudible imaginative hypotheses.

Cristina Varriale: Yeah, exactly. Challenge assumptions all the time.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. Sean.

Sean Corbett: Obviously, I agree with all of that, but in this case, and this might sound slightly counterintuitive though, we need to take a whole of society approach to North Korea. We are all looking at the senior hierarchy, Kim and all the rest of it, like, okay, what is he thinking? How is he dealing with Putin and all the rest of it? So it's two elements. First, look at it from also the Russian perspective, the Chinese perspectives, it's not just about North Korea. But I am actually deeply worried, just delving into the intelligence again, because if the body bags start coming back and if this traction with Russia doesn't go as well as planned, and say, Putin gets removed, and let's face it, all eyes are still on the US elections, where does that live Kim? And of course, as the society starts to slightly open, I know it's only limited, but with the Russian tourists apparently coming in and all the rest of it, and we're seeing, definitely, evidence on imagery that that is being prepared for, so as that information, therefore, definitely will start leaking out, but also leaking in, does a population that has now got no hope of unification, of seeing its population come back, its soldiers come back in body bags and that you add to the infiltration of information, does that then ferment a societal change that cannot be controlled by the leadership?

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, well, we will have to wait and see. Well, at that point then, Rachel, Cristina, thank you. Thank you very sincerely for your contribution. I'm awestruck by the expertise that we bring to this podcast, particularly on things that are so difficult to understand. So I'm very, very grateful, Rachel and Cristina, for you bringing that expertise and experience. Can I also pre- invite you to a follow- up on this? This was actually the second time we've had the pleasure of your company, Cristina. It'll be great to keep doing this because one of the things I've noticed about this podcast when we do the revisits is that we have two types of revisit, one that we would kind of expect, and that was about online, but with some surprises, and then, this one, which is full of surprises. And I think this particular podcast has reminded us that staying curious means we'll come back to this and find something that we didn't expect. So Rachel, thank you for being on the podcast with us.

Rachel Minyoung Lee: Thank you so much. And yeah, this was great. I enjoyed it greatly.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. Thank you, Cristina.

Cristina Varriale: Yeah. Thanks everybody. It was a great discussion.

Harry Kemsley: And for the listeners, if anything you've heard today you'd like to delve into more, please send us questions, many of you do, and some of those questions actually shape future podcasts. If there's anything you'd like us to look at in particular, let us know, we'll try and get to it. Thank you for listening and goodbye.

Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us this week on The World of intelligence. Make sure to visit our website, janes. com/ podcast, or you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts so you'll never miss an episode.